It occurred to me, all of a sudden, one of the chief differences between the current state of affairs in Sanctuary, and the way it was toward the beginning of the server, and then the hundred years before, in the server's history.

It's been said before the survival feel is gone. That's more or less true, yeah.

Charles Bresley, in the early years of Sanctuary, did battle with a ferocious minotaur named One-Eye, and won. There's memorabilia about it all over the place, but it goes unremarked about and entirely ignored most of the time.

What I'm suggesting are more enemies like One-Eye, the minotaur.

In the early weeks there was an Umber Hulk Behemoth that was tearing shit up and causing trouble.

What happened to monsters like that? Just big, incredibly strong beasts who it takes a real hero to slay?

Not all villains have to be schemers or behind the scenes players. How about some that the DMs actually want to see slain in cool, epic, even glorious ways!

I understand that this is probably the aim of a lot of the scripted quests out there, to set up powerful enemies meant to be slain by the players... but seriously guys. Come on.

If I go around bragging about how I slew Ythorax the Gnoll Warlord, nobody is gonna care. Even if the IC awe ought to be there, OOC, people are just gonna say "Yeah, So? I did too. Seven times!"

Maybe we don't need a whole ton of these, but once every so often it'd be nice for the entire server to have a common foe who doesn't necessarily equate to a vast invading force of monsters, bent on the destruction or enslavement of the city.

I really don't know what to say, but I'll give it a shot. During my stint on EFU I've often been involved in DM quests where the "boss" is exactly that. An epically powerful uber buffed Monster/ Demon which requires skill and countless consumables to kill. Are you talking about more spaced out DM quests/plots where the end kill will boost your reputation amongst the player base?. There doesn't seem to be a lack of worthy foes, perhaps people should boast more about their accomplishments IG.

I understand your point, but in the past 6 months EfU has seen dragons, a pit fiend, and a balor. I'm fine with more of what you suggest, but stand by my previous statement.

I hear there's a dragon around...

And if someone killed it, I would be skeptical. Even the existance of such a dragon is often arguable IG. I think he's talking about something that is a more immediate and constant threat to the whole city. So the one who kills it gets bragging rights.

I can only think of two more recent plots that have involved the whole server as well as he's suggesting. The demolistionists in lower and the plague. They both threatened the whole city and whoever would have single handedly taken either of these threats out would have been given a memorable celebration in his honor. A dragon, pit fiend or balor thrown in for a quick event and only from time to time with as many as 8 people bearing witness isn't going to satisfy this very well. It's a waste to bring in the big beasts and only let 1 large party in on the action.

I personally wouldn't mind seeing something a bit more epic myself. Tossing in a small drow faction who might take control of sanctuary for a few weeks perhaps might give the perfect opportunity to make a hero out of the one or two guys who manage to bring it down. Things that last long enough to oppress the entire server for a few days before it's slain so that people don't just shrug it off as just another day in sactuary.

So Kotenku, did you like Fable?

My take on all of this is something similar to Snoteye's I believe..and it goes like this. Whenever DMs put in the effort, even for a single DM quest, to rp with the community and get players involved in fighting some sort of beast or monster in the end it often goes unnoticed. This doesn't happen because the quest is poor, or the idea is poor, but because of the player's desensitized views on things. Even if a DM has a pc hear a rumor about a big mean ogre in a cave, and that one PC assembles a group and destroys the Ogre, there is still no reason for this to go unnoticed, as simple a task as it was. It's all about how you RP your character, whether you'll take the time to go and brag about your quest to others, or if you just go about your business as if you hadn't just fought some Nasty Ogre who was probably a big threat to Sanctuary. Sometimes it isn't simply the heroes fault, but the people who receive the message. Alot of the times they don't care that you just killed an Ogre, one Ogre, wow big deal, they've probably killed 5 or six..so I encourage folks to embelish a bit, make some epic tales, maybe even hire a minstrel or a bard to spread around your fame and accomplishments, because I really think that is the only way you'll achieve a heroic status. In my opinion a real hero could go out and kill a couple handfuls of Troglodytes and turn it into an epic battle of how he saved such and such from their evil. Now i'm not sure that this is entirely what Kotenku was on about, or if I only hit a portion of it (if I hit anything at all).

When DM's do this, the whole server gangs up on the beast in question. There is never just one hero. Plus these events often come in the form of invasions where mulitple places have their own heroes for different reasons.

Things like bresley's killing of One-Eye is supposed to sound epic and heroic. And that's the point. But if we had really been there when One-Eye was killed, Bresley wasn't likely the only one there. Legends tend to exaggerate facts.

I agree with Konteku, it isn't the monsters, it's the players.

Have the bards do their job!

IN response to SnowJewel, Thomas makes this witty reply

Helps if we knew what heroics were going on.

In the end very few NPC deaths are going to remarkable for a variety of reasons. If the DMs made the NPC's hard enough to kill that it took a real hero, you would have a hoard of dead players complaining about unreasonable NPCs they are facing. People tend to remember PvP action more than anything. That is how it should be. NPCs are there to add spice to the server and occasionally give everyone something fun to do. They provide the structure were the PCs provide the story. In my opinion there are multiple multiple evil groups out there for a hero to oppose, the death of these groups would be remarked on quite a bit. Beyond that, if you truly wish to remove NPCs I know of several around Sanctuary that are quite obviously evil and have been there from the Servers creation. Go attempt to remove them.